


The City At Night

by Scatterboom



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Minor Violence, Post-Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-21 07:57:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15553176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scatterboom/pseuds/Scatterboom
Summary: Forged artworks are being smuggled into Chicago, and Irene Adler is on the case.She invites Sherlock Holmes over, partly to help, partly to pick up where they'd left off - wherever that may be.





	The City At Night

**Author's Note:**

> Hello :)
> 
> First off, an apology for my inactivity. I've been busy with real life. I've actually not been spending much time online lately in general this past year. But every now and then my inbox still happily gets an email about someone's comment or kudos on one of my fics and I'm reminded all over again how fond I am of this little community. So, as a thank-you gift, let me pass on this oneshot I've been chipping away at for the past few weeks. I can't really guarantee a full-on return to writing any time soon but it's the least I can do for such a kind, generous, and responsive fandom.
> 
> This is set within the same world as my other fic, The Shape of the Universe, but you don't need to have read that. :) I'd also like to take this time to mention that this fic will make no reference to Sherlock's own encounter with a forgery in The Great Game, mostly because I completely forgot that happened.
> 
> Get comfy, it's a long one! And enjoy!
> 
>  **ETA 14/08/2018:** Snuck in there to edit a very silly mistake on my part - I claimed that London was six hours _behind_ Chicago. D'oy.

The people of Chicago had had a particularly sinful weekend, it seems. The noon bell of the church across the street had rung ages ago, and yet only a trickle of faithful have emerged from the front doors, which means a longer than usual queue for the confessional. Irene Adler, contrition’s worst enemy, watches them from the window of her tenth-floor apartment, feeling every bit as knowledgeable of the level of guilt that weighs on the city as the priest inside that oak booth.

Call it clairvoyance, or the result of years of experience, or maybe she just spends too much time looking at the church from her window-side desk every bloody winter day. When a top-secret, privately commissioned spy job consists of more waiting around for results than it does life-threatening field work, gratitude can soon sour into boredom. Irene Adler did not rise from the dead _thrice_ to refresh online news feeds, thank you very much.

She shuts the lid of her laptop and gets back to neatly laying her dresses into her overnight bag, looking forward to her brief holiday from this reasonably cozy but now too familiar Chicago two-bedroom. The place, the fourth in a string of temporary homes over the last few months, was chosen by her work partner Fatma Ayek for its proximity to two prominent auction houses, which could be helpful in their mission to expose a major ring of millionaire dealers of forged artwork. Irene had no issue with taking up residence on the suede couch, though even an apartment as spacious as theirs could start to feel cramped if you never left it.

Thank god for William Floyd, then. Their investigation had led to him, and his upcoming stay in a luxury hotel in the Near North Side. Finally Irene is in familiar territory. A wealthy, gullible target, and the thrill of undercover work. A quick look into her mark, however, tells her she’ll need a little more help than usual, news which happily comes from Gabriel, Fatma Ayek’s son and the operation’s sole intelligence officer.

“I can do it with you,” he says as Irene continues packing.

“You’re eighteen years old,” she replies, neatly putting her chosen pair of heels into a box. “We wouldn’t fool anyone together, my dear, as capable as I am. And your mother said recon work for you only.”

“She doesn’t have to know,” Gabriel waves a fan of papers from his research to keep her attention. “It’s only one evening.”

“One evening for absolutely anything to happen to you. I’m not ending up on the hit list of a six foot Turkish woman with three different gun licenses in her wallet.”

“I’m telling Mother you looked in her wallet.”

“Then I’ll tell her your Chemistry exam’s a week overdue,” Irene counters. “Get back to looking into those auction houses’ CCTV cameras. Silly boy.”

Gabriel mutters something in Turkish that she doesn’t understand but will surely report to Fatma when she returns, then stomps off to sulk in his designated bedroom. She smiles to herself as she zips her bag closed; the boy does show glimmers of talent, which she’s positive will be put to good use someday in some future mission of his. For now, she’d prefer to do her work with her own contact.

Though, admittedly, there’s more than work on her agenda.

* * *

The Ritz-Carlton in Chicago is a _fantastic_ upgrade from the suede couch. Irene draws the curtains to blackout to indulge in a two-hour afternoon nap in the king size feather bed, then sets the heating to engulf the suite in a wonderful, soupy warmth to combat the chill outside while she begins the detailed process of applying the face of tonight’s character.

As she sets her tubes and jars of makeup on the desk, Irene lets her thoughts drift to what she thinks will happen that coming evening. William Floyd will be easy enough to lure into complacency, his secrets quickly extracted from his laptop and mobile while he’s not looking. He’s not the unpredictable factor here. It’s… another part in the equation, one she’s had experience with in plenty of past, far more interesting situations, but never in one like this. Never one where they were… parallel, cooperating. She can only hope the night starts out with them doing so, at least.

Thankfully, her doorbell sounds at the agreed-upon nine-thirty. Irene takes a steady breath, sets down her things, and rises from her chair.

Sherlock Holmes, bundled in his elegant coat, leather luggage case in hand, broody and distracted and handsome as ever, barrels straight into the luxury suite as soon as Irene pulls open the door. “Tell me the local police won’t get involved,” he says right away, as if picking up from the middle of a conversation, “I’d rather not continue to my business in St. Louis with the news that I’d been blacklisted in the last city I was in.”

Irene smiles privately as she follows him past the kitchen and into the sitting room. “Not to worry. Our client is head of a private firm with its own questionable history. They want the matter resolved outside of the law. Will you not take off your coat?”

“The law is useless anyways,” Sherlock scoffs, dropping his case to the floor and peeling off said garment as he looks around, taking in his surroundings. “A bloated, garbled translation of right and wrong. Your client has that correct, at least. Must you really have it so warm in here?”

Irene takes the coat and, lacking a stand, drapes it over an armchair. She happily tugs the tie of her white bathrobe a little tighter. “Yes. It’s been absolutely frigid. What’s my client got wrong?”

He strides over to the coffee table where Irene has the photographs of several other persons of interests laid out, picking up then tossing each over his shoulder as he looks through them. “Focusing their attention and resources on something as inconsequential as art forgery. The only victims of such a crime are rich idiots. It tells me the interest is personal. They must have a vendetta against someone involved. That, or they’re in the business themselves, and they’re merely eliminating a competitor. How much are you being paid to mediate a feud, exactly?”

“I’ve missed you.”

Sherlock straightens from the table and turns to stare at her. Irene has come to a stop just in front of him, and it’s the closest they’ve stood together in several months.

The last time they’d met, they were saying goodbye in his flat on Baker Street. For a long stretch after, there was no communication. No calls, no texts. Irene had thrown herself into her case in Chicago, needing something as clinical and reliable as work after the emotional intensity of their encounter, and she suspected that he was the same. That is, until a few days ago, when she woke up to an incessantly ringing mobile and an hours-long conversation where an exhausted Sherlock brought her up to speed on the chaos in his life: a long-lost sister, a kidnapping plot stretching over miles and months.

Perhaps it’s fate that so soon after their call, she could use his assistance all the way here across the sea from his home. The man might enjoy a case not connected to London or the vast number of enemies the British Government had accumulated. And it would be good for Sherlock to spend some time far away from it all, now that things have calmed down. It’s simply a side benefit that that time would be spent with her.

All of that has led to them standing here together now. Sherlock is still a little breathless, simmering with the energy that he had charged into the hotel suite with. He looks thrown off by what she’d said. The light outside is cool and low, and it softens his face as they look at each other.

Irene knows how to calm his nerves. She puts a hand on the chest of his suit jacket, pressing it lightly. She doesn’t break their gaze. “Work first.”

Underneath her hand she feels him relax. He lets out a quiet breath and straightens his back, then gives a short nod.

When Irene nods back, he turns to face the files and notes laid out on the table again. “Who’s our mark?”

“William Floyd,” she steps around to his side, arms crossed. “Thirty-eight. Good friends with the president of Medina Art Auctions just down the road from here. His parents own Floyd Security, a transport service for high value goods – like rare art.” She pushes some photos out of the way. “The records of the auction house mention the delivery of a parcel of European paintings to Medina just last Sunday, carried out by Floyd Security, but the point of origin is listed as ‘confidential.’ We have a theory that Floyd helps ensure that the fake artworks arrive at reputable auction houses without raising suspicion; he dims the lights, so to speak.”

“Why would he risk his parents’ reputation for a favor like that?”

“There are rumors that he’s racked up an enormous debt with a local drug lord. I imagine assisting the auction house gets him a cut of the profits.” She pulls another piece of paper into view, a screenshot of the hotel’s digital reservation log. “He’s staying at this hotel tonight. Simple extraction job. Capture his attention in the bar, get into his room, take a peek at his devices, see who he’s talking to.”

“Sounds no more difficult than your usual work,” says Sherlock. “What did you need me for, then?”

Irene smiles. “Floyd’s a bit of a bad boy. He prefers married women.”

Sherlock is silent for a moment. “You withheld that information from me until now just so you could see my reaction, didn’t you.”

She glows, fulfilled. “Thought it would be more romantic to propose in person. I’m a traditionalist.”

He sighs and looks back at the notes. “You may have competition. I think I encountered a girlfriend of his in the lobby. Kept asking for William Floyd’s room so she could visit.”

“Sounds about right. He’s known to be a heartbreaker. Don’t worry, I won’t let myself get hurt.”

Sherlock rolls his eyes. “I assume you have aliases prepared.”

“American, here on business. I’ve narrowed it down to Mr. and Mrs. Wagener or Hurley.”

“Wagener works. If it sounds like you married a foreigner, he’ll think it will be easier to woo you.”

She loves when he makes comments like that. One way they’re deliciously similar is that Sherlock is an observer of guilt in other people, like her. He knows how to make use of that guilt to push someone to perform their penance in predictable ways. Though she doubts he’d be as poetic about it.

“Excellent.” She starts towards the bedroom. “Now you’ll help me pick out my clothes.”

“Not really the time to be vain,” he calls after her, though it’s said without unkindness.

“It’ll help breathe a little life into Mrs. Wagener,” Irene waves a hand, “Don’t chastise me just because your disguises only come in variants of ‘man with tie’ and ‘man without tie’.”

“The true façade is created from the way you move and speak. And I can’t very well reinvent my wardrobe or dye my hair till it falls off my head for every overnight job that comes my way.”

Irene tuts. “Now who’s being vain?”

Sherlock turns his back on her, ostensibly to look through the files he’s gathered in his hands, but there’s no denying the glimpse of a smirk she catches on him. She triumphantly tilts her chin as she enters her bedroom.

When she reemerges with three dresses over her arm, however, Sherlock isn’t flipping through papers, but staring at something on his mobile. His smirk is gone.

“What’s wrong?”

It takes him another moment to answer. “Just some nagging from Mycroft. Asking if I’d wrapped up on this and that before I left.”

Any other time she would have flinched at the name, but now she only softens as she comes nearer. “How is he?”

Sherlock’s lips tighten. “Recovering. Seeing someone about it.” His eyes flick up from his phone to her. “Still cross that you slipped out of London under his nose. Again.”

She smiles at that. Sherlock looks back down, presumably to text a response, but he stays conspicuously frozen, thumb hovering over the digital letters. In the evening light he looks like an image on a screen himself, hazy and flickering.

Irene begins to reach towards him with her free hand. “If you don’t want to work tonight – “

“No,” he says, sharply but not rudely. He leans away from her touch as he pockets his mobile, though he falters when their eyes meet. “…I want to.” His jaw works. “I have to.”

She considers him a few seconds longer. Then she nods. “Alright. Don’t say I didn’t offer.”

“Oh, I won’t.” Sherlock picks his luggage case up from the floor and starts for the bedroom.

The door clicks closed, and Irene turns to her desk-turned-vanity. She picks up her fake wedding ring, a simple white-gold band that glitters against her pale skin, and absently twists it onto her finger as she wonders if this is his penance, or hers.

* * *

The hotel lounge hums with blue light and the hushed chatter of its few guests. Irene sits alone at the bar, faced away from the commotion, but making sure the sight of her commands attention as expertly as it always does, her tight black dress cutting a deep V down her back, her hair tousled and tossed brazenly over a shoulder.

She runs a finger up and down the stem of her empty martini glass, and waits. They know William Floyd had reserved a table in the lounge for himself at that time, and though she can’t see him she knows that she’s parked well within his view. Front row seats to the show.

She checks the time. 10:30 PM. Earlier she and Sherlock had synchronized their wristwatches to the second, and in just twenty more he is to take the seat beside hers. She wonders if she can expect utter precision, or if recent events require her to be more lenient with him. Either way, she’ll adjust. Better to trust her own ability before anyone else’s.

But surely enough, right on time, Mr. Wagener slides in from the left, dutifully setting a new drink in front of his wife. He’s in a smart navy blazer, obviously new, casually styled with no tie. She notes smugly that his hair is as it’s always been.

“Awful weather for any sort of meeting.” His crafted accent is impeccable, native Austrian German with its edges blurred by decades spent in America as an expat. “Imagine a company falling apart thanks only to ill timing.”

“Either we’ll be walking out of that boardroom tomorrow empty-handed, or it’ll be empty to begin with.” Hers is a drawl born and raised in the West Coast, a little more nasal and higher pitched than her real voice. She raises her new glass for a sarcastic toast. “Might as well be travelling for pleasure now.”

In the vast, sparsely filled lounge, their conversation won’t be overheard word for word, but they have to put on the performance of a semi-private conversation, speaking in whispers and leaning close the intimate way a couple would. Irene angles her body more boldly towards Sherlock, confident that they already have Floyd’s curiosity.

“No pleasure here,” he answers, peering down derisively at his own scotch. “Dull city. Dull season.”

“Dull company,” Irene teases. The voice may be Wagener’s, but the complaint is blatantly Sherlock’s.

She’s mildly surprised, then, when he huffs in amusement the way his character would, then casually rests his hand over hers on the bar top with all the grace and familiarity of a long-term spouse.

It’s their first touch in months. He runs his thumb over her knuckles, briefly brushing over her wedding band. Clever.

“Better dull than unreliable,” he says, lifting his glass to take a sip. “And better here than absent.”

Irene raises her brows at that, but Sherlock doesn’t punctuate his words with a glance towards her. He stares ahead as if reading the labels off the bottles along the bar wall.

“Great slogan,” she says. “You should print ads in housekeeping magazines.”

That gets Sherlock to turn his head, though his expression is unreadable. They share the gaze for a long time, soft, forgettable jazz filling the silent space between them. Irene wonders momentarily if she’d offended him, and if that should worry her.

Sherlock faces forward again. “Around this time three years ago I was in Serbia.”

Three years ago, when he was destroying the last of Jim Moriarty’s network. He still speaks in Wagener’s voice. Irene says nothing.

“There were rumors of a secluded paramilitary base in the wilderness that guarded documents belonging to Moriarty, that, when used, could mobilize his remaining contacts to execute a seemingly-foreign attempt on the Queen’s life. Potentially triggering a small war. I and a few others who considered the man their enemy teamed up to locate it.”

Irene doubts he’s ever told this to anyone before. She props an elbow on the bar top, resting her head on her knuckles, the spitting image of a wife listening to her husband’s story with affectionate boredom.

“Mistakes were made, and the five of us were captured. We were subjected to the standard fare: beatings, food and sleep deprivation.” He spoke as if torture were a nuisance everyone endured daily at the bus stop. “The plan, as I overheard, was to kill us once we all gave information. The first four caved, one by one, and gave the names of their employers. I was last.”

The hand resting over hers twitches suddenly, as if involuntarily reacting to the sense memory of a rope tugging at the wrist. “I didn’t confess a thing. Didn’t budge once. I knew that if I did, we would all be dead. And I kept that reminder at the front of my mind for two days, until my brother so valiantly arrived to save us all.”

Irene is completely still. Sherlock slowly rotates his glass of scotch. “Reliability. Is my last line of defense. Knock it down, and I’d lose everything. I have to be consistent, and I have to be able to work, or else what good am I.”

 Irene straightens and lets him wallow in silence for a moment longer. She tilts her head; at every angle he appears as human as he ever has. No illusions, no tricks of the light.

“You are reliable,” she assures him softly after a while, “but you needn’t always try as hard as you do. Especially when whatever audience you have present, torturer or no, is already thoroughly impressed.” She lets some levity color those words. “You’re not as impenetrable as you want to have others believe.”

He grunts in amusement. “You have a hypothesis?”

“I have results.”

He looks at her. She still can’t quite read his face, though his eyes are serious. For ages neither of them move.

Thirty seconds past 10:32PM, the time Sherlock is to excuse himself from the lounge and leave her alone to deal with Floyd. He stays still for another five; Irene can’t tell if it’s on purpose.

Then, sitting up straight, he slides his palm under hers, raises it up to his lips and presses a kiss to the back of her hand. Gratuitous and openly affectionate, something Mr. Wagener would do to Mrs. Wagener as he was taking his leave. He lingers there for a long time, eyes closed, until the warmth of his breath gently blankets her skin, until she feels a simmer of energy from her fingertips to her shoulder.

Afterwards, according to plan, he untangles his arm from hers, slides off the stool, and walks away without another word or glance. Irene watches him go through the exit and disappear into the hallway.

She looks at the space he left empty, and briefly considers abandoning the plan to follow him. But then she feels a shift of movement and heat from her other side and, steeling herself, she turns.

William Floyd, sandy-haired and smooth-faced, right on schedule. He leans an elbow on the bar, holding his own martini. “Beautiful sky tonight.”

Irene puts on a coquettish smile. Time to set things in motion. “It’s no Monet.”

“No what?”

“Monet. The…” she searches his face for a hint of humor. He holds their gaze with happy, but blank, eyes. “Never mind. Yes, beautiful sky.” She lifts her glass to clink against his. “Make it your goal to point out pretty things, do you?”

“I’d like to, but I don’t know your name.”

She’d be somewhat charmed by that if he hadn’t put on the silliest, most self-satisfied smirk. “I’m Katelyn Wagener.”

“Will. Will Floyd.” Straight to nicknames, how playful. “Hope I’m not intruding. It just pains me to see a lovely woman spending the evening alone in a place like this.”

Ah, but of course he’d seen her sitting with her “husband”. This is where she either corrects him, or implicitly gives him permission to seduce her. She’ll take the bait. “Let’s ease your pain, then.”

Floyd moves to take the seat next to hers. “Californian, I’m guessing? What brings you to Chicago?”

Irene fakes a laugh. “California, yes. What gave it away, my visible disappointment over being here?” She shakes her head. “I have a business meeting in the city. I’m attending it tomorrow with my – “

“– Husband,” Sherlock finishes, coming in on her other side.

Irene twists back to look at him. It’s only thanks to years of experience that she keeps her smile on, but her eyes are wide with questions. Sherlock, for his part, seems utterly composed, oblivious to her alarm. He leans his side against the bar.

“…Ah,” she hears behind her. “Katelyn and I were just having a friendly talk.”

“Yes,” she says, her eyes not leaving Sherlock, wondering how to remind him of the time-sensitive mission they were on, right now, right here, you know, in case you’d forgotten. “I was just telling him about Monet.”

“Whatever that is,” their target snorts. “My name’s William Floyd.”

“I know all about you, William Floyd,” Sherlock replies easily, with no accent disguising him.

Irene hopes the height her eyebrows have raised to is enough of a warning. He continues, “Head of Floyd Security, aren’t you?”

Irene whips back to Floyd, who actually looks a little pleased to be recognized. “Oh, soon to be, at least. My father is CEO at the moment, but I assist with logistics.”

Her thoughts fly as she thinks of a way to repair the damage Sherlock’s caused. “My husband has an interest in wartime artifacts. He has a few discoveries waiting in New York that he needs shipped here. Was Floyd Security one of the companies you were thinking to hire, darling?”

Sherlock’s brows draw together. “Was it?” Oh, she is going to kill him if Floyd’s thugs don’t get them both first.

Floyd, thankfully, only seems to hear “hire.” He brims with pride. “Safety and speed, that’s our promise. We’re having a few of our vans repaired, unfortunately, so for the last month we’ve only been shipping Monday through Friday. I could sneak you to the front of the queue, as a favor to your charming wife…”

“…I see,” Sherlock says, suddenly bright. There’s a strange look of amazement on his face. “So you’re not feigning ignorance. You really are just that stupid.”

“Excuse me?” says Floyd.

“Darling,” Irene says through a clenched smile.

Sherlock grabs her wrist. “Shipping Monday through Friday.”

“What are you – “ Irene’s mouth drops. She searches his face. “The last delivery was made Sunday.”

“What are we talking about?” asks Floyd.

Sherlock takes the glass of scotch he’d left on the bar and downs it completely. “Enlightening to meet you, William. We’re going up to our room now.”

Irene hops off the stool without a second look at Floyd, and they rush out of the lounge.

* * *

As soon as they’re inside Irene’s hotel suite, they sit down at the couch to rifle through the notes spread out on the coffee table. They revisit the auction house delivery records, look into the number of armored vans the transport service sent in for repair.

“It appears Floyd Security was never actually involved,” she says after a few minutes of cross-referencing dates, reading and rereading files, “The auction house’s real contact is just delivering the forgeries under his name. He doesn’t know a thing.”

“You’re right,” says Sherlock, “he doesn’t know a thing.”

Irene lets out a soft laugh, a real one now. She looks at him as he sits beside her on the couch, brimming with smugness over their discovery, more relaxed than he’d ever looked earlier that evening. “Why did you come back?”

“Hmm?” He still seems distracted.

“The bar. You were supposed to leave me to deal with Floyd, but you came back in.” She raises an eyebrow. “That wasn’t in the timeline.”

“Ah.” His eyes narrow in thought; his lips press together as if he’d just remembered. “When I went out into the hallway, I saw a woman standing by the elevators. The same one I’d seen in the lobby a few hours ago, asking about William Floyd’s room. But she hadn’t pressed either of the elevator buttons. She was just waiting. Then I walked by her as her back was turned, and I saw a tattoo on her neck. A mouth with an eye in it. Rumored to be the symbol of one of the city’s largest underground drug cartels.” He gives her a look now, sober and quiet. “You said earlier Floyd owed a large sum to a local drug lord. It seems there’s going to be an attempt on his life tonight. That woman was waiting for him to enter the elevator so she could see which floor he chose. Had you gone up to his room with him, you would have been considered a witness and she would have eliminated you, too.” He straightens his shoulders. “That’s why I came back.”

Irene is quiet for a time. “I see.” She rises from the couch and walks to the desk, and starts shedding accessories: pulling off her wedding ring, unclasping her earrings, her necklace. She drops the items on the tabletop one by one.

She hears Sherlock walk up behind her. “Are you angry with me?”

“No,” she teases, “just disappointed.” She unclasps her wristwatch last, and lays it carefully down. “I would have been fine.”

“Pardon?”

“If I had run into the assassin. I’m always prepared for a scrapping.” She hitches her leg up, perches her heel on the desk chair, then pulls her skirt back to her hip with a sly smile: a thigh holster, stark black against her skin. The hilt of a knife juts out from it.

Irene removes the holster and lowers her leg, point made, though Sherlock’s gaze lingers in the place where the skin of her thigh was once exposed.

She puts away the last of her things and faces him, resting her hands against the edge of the desk. “Still. It was very sweet of you to deviate from a carefully woven plan to check up on me.”

“Now you’re just having fun.”

She beams. “I always am.”

Something like fondness flickers across Sherlock’s face. Irene likes him this way, flushed and triumphant, tired enough not to hide the first thing he feels. She smiles up at him, their bodies just inches apart, so that their shadows fall across each other. Her hair over his shoulder, his head against her neck.

The silence stretches, and Sherlock’s shadow wavers. He takes a small step back. “Good night.”

Irene blinks. He turns around and starts towards his luggage case by the couch. “Where are you going?”

“Home,” Sherlock replies. His pulls his coat from the gray polyester armchair Irene had draped it over earlier. “The job is finished. You don’t have need of me any longer.”

 _“Need?”_ Irene is incredulous. “Sherlock, I didn’t summon you here because I _needed_ you.”

“Oh, that’s a wonderful thing to hear,” he snaps, folding his coat over his arm, “after being called four thousand miles away from a delicate situation involving friends and family.”

Irene pushes herself off from the desk. “It says more that you came here than it did that I asked.”

“I – “ she doesn’t miss the way his line of sight travels briefly down then up her body, even when he’s half-turned towards his case. He seems to catch himself; he closes his eyes and faces away. “I’m not denying my part in this. But coming here doesn’t freeze things in London, nor does it make me forget. The thoughts don’t stop. The danger doesn’t stop.” The line of his throat moves as he makes a painful swallow. “The work never stops.”

Irene walks until they’re standing as close as they were a moment before, but now her back is straight, her face is stone. “Do I freeze when you go out that door?”

Sherlock turns, looks at her. “No. Quite the opposite.” He sighs. “But you’ve always been able to handle yourself. It isn’t the same back home. There are things I’ve broken that I have to fix. I can’t allow myself the luxury of escaping across the sea to play pretend that everything is fine.”

Irene reaches and gently lays a hand on the arm he’s slung his coat over.

Even through the thick layers of fabric she feels him go tense; he makes a sound of frustration and makes to pull away. _Fine,_ she thinks hollowly. He is no prisoner. She lets go and begins to step back.

He darts forward to catch her behind the waist. Irene nearly loses her balance before she throws her hands back and grabs hold of the arm he’s wrapped around her.

Once righted, they stand like that for a stretch of silence. The arm holding his coat is still trapped between them like a final barrier.

Her nails dig into his sleeve. “This isn’t pretend, is it?” As she speaks, his knuckles graze her chest.

Sherlock exhales. “No. It’s real.” He tilts closer into her, so that she has to tip her chin back, and she feels the front of her dress brush against his trousers.

His eyes search hers, full of terror and awe. He says, “More real than anything.”

Irene reaches for him, and he yields. His coat is flung to the carpet floor, forgotten.

She pulls him down by the hair and his hands wrap around her back. It’s a tempestuous kiss with no anchor; they push and stagger against each other, perpetually in danger of tumbling over. At some point they kick his leather luggage case; it makes a muted, unnoticed thud.

Sherlock backs her into the front of the armchair. She falls onto it, bringing him down with her. There’s little space on the cushion for the length of their bodies, so their legs spill over in a tangle. They kiss blindly and almost angrily, groping for purchase, breaths coming so fast it sounds like white noise. His tongue slides over hers as she slumps further down the armchair so that they can press against each other.

Irene shoves his blazer down his shoulders. He puts his arms behind him only long enough so that he can shake off the sleeves, and then his hands are back to pinning her hips to the cushion as he rolls against her, swearing into her mouth. She writhes impatiently, the rough polyester of the chair and their precarious balance only driving her harder against him. She’s real, all this sensation should remind him. She won’t let him forget it.

His fingers join hers in undoing his belt. Whenever they’re together he always moves as if he was almost out of time. Irene stretches her neck to push another kiss to his mouth; she feels him falter slightly on his belt, and then their work resumes.

Sherlock’s hands dip under her skirt to take the edges of her underwear. He lifts up for space as he pulls it down and off her legs, sliding her heels off with them, then he crashes back into her, face against her bare shoulder, fingertips sinking into her thighs, his grip as tight as her holster had felt.

When Irene tugs his trousers down his hips and curls a fist around his cock, heavy and hot, he lets out a groan muffled against her and drives her deeper into the chair. She feels him move up the inside of her thigh, her skin already slick with arousal, until he grazes her entrance. Her mouth falls open in a gasp.

They can’t be bothered with the rest of their clothes. He enters her hard, both of them letting out cut-off cries. Immediately he plants his feet against the floor and they start rocking against each other.

Their motions are jerky and ungraceful, desperate and frustrated. Irene digs the heel of her foot into his arse, pinning him to her. Sherlock takes a grip of the back of the armchair while his other hand holds him over her. They can’t articulate anything save for harsh grunts and mutters of half-words, lost into each other’s necks.

Every movement of his hips sets Irene further afire and clouds her mind. His weight presses against her clit, making her legs throb and her nails dig into his back. She almost wants to laugh, dazedly remembering the church across her apartment and its confessional booth, wood straining from the bulk of its parishioners’ sins, wondering how the mild-mannered old priest inside it might react to the explicit details of the shameful story of how she strayed from grace this week.

Irene turns her head and plants her mouth on the sliver of shoulder she can free from his dampened shirt, sucking tight at his skin. He shudders and picks up his speed, leaning more into his grasp on the armchair so that it even begins to rock slightly along with them. Irene moans, burning from the friction and the feel of him pumping inside her, from the strain she feels in her limbs as they struggle to keep balance. Their location and physical arrangement are far too intriguing to have been a mindless choice. She notes with slyness and a swell of lust that he must have seen this chair when he first entered, thought of it all evening and thought of having her on it. Everything had gone according to plan, after all.

She tenses her jaw, adding her teeth to the suction, seized with the urge to add pain to his pleasure. Sherlock gasps and takes his hand from the cushion, gathers a fistful of her hair from the root and yanks her away from his shoulder with a breathy growl. Irene only has half a second to register the sting in her scalp before his mouth is on hers, hot and wet. With nothing holding him over her now he is crushed against her, their thrusts fast and vicious, uncoordinated.

Irene comes gasping, the pulses inside her so intense she can’t bear it. She lifts both legs and wraps them around Sherlock’s hips to hold him there. He frantically drives deeper into her embrace, and it’s not long before he tenses over her, shuddering out his climax with a broken noise.

They slump against the chair, nearly sliding off the cushion. There’s no sound in the room but their panting, not the hum of the room, not the bustle of the city outside. Sherlock lies exhausted against her. Their arms are tangled, holding them together.

When their breathing has slowed and quieted, Irene summons enough energy to lift a hand to comb into his hair. Her other one runs over his back. Her lips find his temple. “Mm. You’re soaked.”

Sherlock exhales. “If you’d just turned the heating down.” But he slowly pulls back from her and straightens, kneeling into the carpet. He peels off his shirt then she helps him with his trousers. Nude now, he reaches for her shoulders and ease the straps of her dress down her arms.

When her dress is folded down far enough to bare her breasts, smooth and cooling with sweat, Sherlock leans over and covers a nipple with his mouth. He sucks on it as she squirms, partially restrained by his hands keeping her straps around her forearms, pressing them into her sides – a nice touch. He knows his audience.

He finally slips the whole garment off her body, and, glancing up at her with an expression that’s far too innocent, hooks her legs over his shoulders and leans down to roll his tongue over her clit.

Irene gasps, twitching at the contact, still tender so soon after an orgasm. Sherlock slides in deeper, finding a sleepy pace. He works diligently, pausing only for a teasing kiss on her inner thigh or to gasp when she pulls at his hair. It’s reverent, almost sweet, until he adds a curling finger, and then it’s not anymore.

Her orgasm this time is a slow, heaving, tightening in her center, filling her like a hot drink. It thrums for so long and recedes so gradually she’d almost like to fall asleep, but she fights the sinking feeling to bring Sherlock back up to her level and kiss him soundly. His mouth is slick with her.

Irene lets him feel the smile on her lips before they pull back from each other. “I should’ve called you over to help me months ago.”

“Months ago I was exaggerating a drug-induced delirium to catch the attention of my landlady,” he says matter-of-factly, though there’s a rasp in his voice. “I doubt you would’ve wanted me in that position.”

“Darling, I want you in every position.” She taps a fingertip on his nose, then eases out of their embrace to rise from the chair. “Come with me.”

She walks over to the desk, hearing the soft thud of Sherlock’s feet over the carpet behind her. “What is it?”

Irene turns around and lifts a hand to his bare shoulder. She traces it lightly down the length of his arm until she lands against his wrist. “Your watch. Let’s not get it ruined.”

She undoes the metal clasp for him and lays it on the desk, right next to hers. Their second hands still tick in unison, thin, faithful lines of light in the darkness. She looks at the pair of them, sitting amongst her makeup and jewelry, for a long moment. It’s nearly midnight.

“Do you enjoy your work?” she hears him ask, his voice low. It’s well-meaning though awkward, almost sounding like small talk. Oh, the office is lovely and my colleagues have been a winning team, but no one seems onboard with my suggestion of a monthly potluck.

“I enjoy my freedom,” she answers instead. She turns around and leans back against the table to face him. The same way they’d stood several minutes ago, though now they’re both unclothed and considerably disheveled.

The corner of his mouth briefly twitches upward, though of course he can probably sense her evasion from a mile away. She tilts her head. “Why do you ask?”

“I was wondering how difficult or boring it could be to give you an excuse to invite me over.”

Irene grins. “You underestimate how much I love excuses. I’d invite you over if I needed a partner for chess.”

“I despise chess.”

“I’d tell you it was poker.” She tiptoes to give him a dizzying kiss, also to keep him from firing out another retort simply to keep arguing with her.

After a moment she pulls back, tracing a finger over his collarbone. “London is six hours ahead, isn’t it?”

Sherlock says nothing, though his brows draw together. Both a _yes_ and a _why._ Irene continues, “The journey is nine hours long. If you leave now, you could catch a late flight. You’d be home by evening. Sneak upstairs and climb into bed. Your friends would never know.”

“You want me to leave?”

“Absolutely not.” Irene smiles up at him. “But you traveled thousands of miles from home, where you’re needed, just to satisfy a whim of mine. Normally I’d consider that an accomplishment, but it’s you. I’ve exploited your fondness for me.” She circles her fingers around his wrist again. “I’m sorry.”

She’s admitted less embarrassing things to him, to be sure. Even now the phrase is mildly irritating, sour on her tongue, but she doesn’t want him to leave this hotel nursing the beginnings of a grudge.

She expects him to eye her with suspicion, or else wryly voice his disbelief that Irene Adler could ever be apologizing for something. But even under the faint light in the room she can see that his face is as serious as before. She doesn’t look down, but she can feel him slowly slipping his wrist out from her hold so that he can take hers instead. His hand is large and warm, resting against her thigh.

Sherlock leans in, pulling himself into shadow. “I’m not.”

He kisses her, full and eager, not letting go of her wrist. Irene is frozen for a moment, but then she melts into him, and parts her lips for his tongue. She slides her palm from his chest around to his back. He has to lean down considerably for the kiss, so the muscles in his neck are taut under her touch, but she holds him against her anyway, as close as she possibly can.

She can feel his erection at her hip and the sweat on his skin. She hums and thrusts her tongue against his, pulling her hand out from his grasp to reach and dig her nails around his nipple, closing them into a pinch.

He gasps and jerks against her. “Turn around,” he says against her mouth.

Her heart jumps. There’s a growing heat between her legs as she does as he asked, then she feels his wide hand over her back to coax her forward. She bends, hair falling past her shoulders, until she can plant her hands on the tabletop.

His hand runs down her spine then settles on her hip. There’s a moment of hesitation, or perhaps he’s admiring her. Irene deeply enjoys being admired, but she’d enjoy it more if he followed through with what he started. She arches her back with a deliberately languid sigh and moves backward into him. Her thigh grazes his cock, hot against her skin. His breath hitches and he takes a grip of both her hips.

He sinks into her with a moan. Her legs shake, but she drives back defiantly. Not even in an arrangement like this would she like being passive, so for his every roll forward, she pushes against him, until they manage a frenzied, competitive rhythm.

Sherlock’s breaths are loud and harsh, his fingers pressing grooves into her skin. He starts countering her with a thrust that’s more drawn out and ends with an upward jerk, sending through her a wonderful shock that reaches her shoulders and toes. She groans and takes a hand from the desk, which jangles with her jewelry and jars of makeup, and braces it on the wall in front of her. Her front bumps against the edge of the table with their every movement, teasing but not quite reaching her clit, winding her up infuriatingly.

Sherlock comes, signaled by a series of stuttering thrusts, which is enough to jolt Irene into her own orgasm. She whimpers and nearly falls forward, her forehead landing on the wall, until she feels Sherlock lean over her to brace against the wall himself, panting, his body heavy with exhaustion.

They stay like that for a long moment, collecting themselves. Her back is warm with Sherlock hovering over it, his hand tracing her ribs. His face buried in her hair. The table is intact, luckily.

After some silence, Irene murmurs, “Now I’m not sorry, either.”

Sherlock laughs quietly, and she feels the rumble of his chest. He heaves a sigh. “Bed?”

The suite’s king-size bed still has Mrs. Wagener’s dresses sprawled over it from Irene’s picking out earlier that evening. They push them all to the floor and climb onto the soft white duvet. Sherlock lies flat on his back, his eyes already heavy with sleep, while Irene pillows her head on his outstretched arm, facing away from him and out the window.

The sky is still and quiet. It’s difficult to tell in this darkness if it’s filled with clouds or not at all. It reminds her of those dreamlike moments on planes at night over the sea, when the cabin lights would be switched off and its passengers asleep, bundled in blankets, and she’d peer out the round window to see a vast black stretch, no sky, no water, not even time or place, just a low, soft buzz of sound as they move through the air.

“My sister is three years younger than me,” she hears Sherlock say. His voice is low and soft at the edges, his lips barely moving.

She turns her head just slightly, so he can see that she’s listening. “She would have been eighteen when I left university. Twenty when I became a detective.” He breathes. “Twenty-nine when I met you.”

Irene is still. He continues, “I… sometimes imagine my life had she been around all those years, instead of locked up on an island. What she’d say or how she’d react. At the very least I count back what age she would have been. It helps me feel as if I know her. I don’t know if that counts as coping.”

A small shift, like he had turned his own head to look at her. “I tried to do the same, with you tonight, too.”

She still says nothing. She moves one of her hands to lightly trace her fingers on his arm.

Sherlock goes on, “I tried to imagine that we’ve been seeing each other all these years. You never had to leave London, I never had to hunt Moriarty’s people down. The mission in Eastern Europe never happened. You never would’ve been in danger.” He seems unable to speak for a moment. “It felt ideal for an hour or so. But then, I realized it meant you would have no reason to be with me.”

Irene turns onto her other side now to face him. His eyes are tired, but serious, and there’s a subtle shake in his jaw as he moves his mouth, trying to form his next word. “I don’t know what I can be to you. If I’m even something you need.”

She props herself up on one elbow and reaches her free hand to lay gently on his cheek. She studies his face for a while, its angles, wrinkles, shifts in expression. “You’re not just ‘something’ to me.”

That smooths the crease on his brow, at least. Irene stretches to kiss him slowly, and when he raises his head to counter her she throws a leg over his hip.

It’s pitch dark out in the city, but inside this room she knows exactly where to find his hands and pin them to the sheets on either side of his head. She could lose track of the time, or forget where she was, and she’d still know how to find him. He _is_ something to her, and he’s always been good at it. An anchor.

The city could be exploding with noise, and she wouldn’t hear it.

* * *

“I checked the Sunday CCTV recordings like you asked,” Gabriel says to her, turning his laptop around on the table. “You’re right. A delivery made by Floyd Security, but the plate number on the vehicle doesn’t match any registered to them.”

Irene, sprawled on the suede couch, looks lazily at his screen. “Good work. They must not know Floyd’s stopped shipping out on weekends.”

“We caught the driver, too.” He taps a finger on the blurred figure. “Short Caucasian man, red hair, I would say twenties.”

“Interesting.” She shifts to a more comfortable position on the cushions. “Get your jacket.”

“What?”

“I recognize the van, now that you’ve shown it to me.” Irene jerks a thumb in the direction of their apartment window, where daylight is streaming through. “I see it in the church parking lot across the street every Monday. And I do believe it’s that man who gets out of it.”

Gabriel wavers, still holding the lid of his laptop. “Do you mean…”

“There’s a young men’s bible study meeting today, right about now. That must be where he goes.” Her eyes are closed now, though she reaches under the couch and pulls out a few pamphlets she’d swiped from the parish bulletin. “They might be eager to talk with a new recruit. Be back in an hour. I won’t tell your mother.”

Silence for a few seconds. Then she feels the pamphlets fly out of her hand, and hears the sound of Gabriel scrambling to his feet.

“I’ll do my best!” he calls out, already halfway through the door.

Irene smiles. She stretches, then glances at her wristwatch to make doubly sure that Fatma won’t get home before her son does. The face of the clock glows in the sunlight. Outside, the noon bell rings.

Sherlock’s flight is soon. Their watches will only be synchronized to the second for another few hours, but she knows that, for now, their time is exactly the same. As it always will be.


End file.
